Paulson Surprised by Ilyumzhinov's Claim ECF Will Support Him In the FIDE Election

The English Chess Federation (ECF) published a letter addressed to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, in which the ECF president Andrew Paulson writes the following:

"It has come to my attention that you have declared to the Russian press that the English Chess Federation will support you in your bid for re-election as president of FIDE. This baseless claim has caused consternation among our members and undermined our efforts to build institutional trust between the ECF, our members and FIDE.

Could you please issue a clarification that although you have been invited by the ECF Board to visit them in London and you hope the win their support, no decision has yet been taken on the ECF’s vote in the FIDE election. Convincing the ECF to back you against Kasparov or a potential third candidate will be an uphill battle."

The ECF president Andrew Paulson answers the recent publication by the ECF Board which "passed a motion of No Confidence in Paulson." He wrote on the very forum the following, "Members of the Board attempted a coup d'état last Saturday, but failed [...] The ECF Chief Executive, one of the ECF Non-Executive Directors and a f

As it has been known on November the 5th Turkish Chess Federation's presidential election will take place.The very interesting fact is that FIDE president Ilyumzhinov's visits to the country started to become more and more frequent. On the 22nd of October, in other words just today, he came once again to Turkey with the ingenious idea to organise a tournament among children from Black Sea countries.

A joint declaration by three West African federations has been published on kasparov2014.com. The Presidents of the National Chess Federations of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria "as members of a new generation of African leaders and managers" state their attitude towards the upcoming elections and particularly current FIDE leadership tactics in regard to them.

FIDE president's assistant Berik Balgabayev commented for our website on Garry Kasparov's accusations towards current FIDE leadership. According to one of such accusations Russian embassies worldwide are putting pressure on chess federations and demand from them voting for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.